Ranked QOL update suggestions

[sonorous]

Having played a substantial amounts of games this season 7 here is my list of thoughts regarding the ranked solo experience.
I will collate them here and hope that devs/team might be able to pick one or two points to help improve the experience.



Current System

• 2 month season

• MMR system is good

• Matchmaker is better than what it used to be

• Current rewards are nice but not inclusive

• Having two MMR tiers is nice

QOL changes

Matchmaker Updates
Sometimes the matchmaker has had 16+ people in queue. But due to asymetric dps or too great MMR differences it never pops. I suggest implementing a colour coded matchmaker mode that takes into effect after 10 minutes of non pops where sufficient players are present. After a pop the matchmaker resets to standard mode again.
Red Mode

• Force a game between large MMR discrepencies or asymetric dps

• Takes into effect when no match is possible under current matchmaker conditions

• -60% MMR gains & -60% MMR losess. So if you are to lose 100mmr you instead only lose 40mmr

Gold Mode

• Pops are happening way way way to late for majority of server pop. 2am-3am EU time.

• Starting 21:00 Altdorf time for 1 hour add a golden hour EU queue mode to get the pops started

• +25% MMR gains during golden hour

Blue Mode

• Maybe once a week have matchmaker kick off a blue mode queue

• Experimental mode with different scenario maps

• Or after 5 kills highest [heals, dps, protect] on each team becomes a champion

• Or replace flag with troll and blue team must heal and defend it while red team has 10 minutes to kill it

• -60% MMR gains & -60% MMR losess. So if you are to lose 100mmr you instead only lose 40mmr

GUI Changes

• Add an LED to specify what mode the current matchmaker is looking for next. Have a 2min buffer between mode changes so ppl can leave q

• Have a career resource icon for higher and lower MMR brackets in GUI. This shows how close each bracket is to popping under current requirements. E.G Higher MMR bracker 70% full

Engagment Updates
Population is an issue. But we are also not the most inclusive community. The salt comes with the territory.
So my suggestion is to add a checkbox in the GUI called Incognito Mode
If you use this mode the following happens:

• Any game you are in is treated as a Red modegame with reduced MMR even if matchmaker queues you in standard mode

• You will never be matched with higher ranked normal games

• Your MMR is hidden and you don't show up in leaderboards

• Scenario chat issues following message. "This is an incognito game bc 1 or more players is anonymous. Scenario chat is disabled and direct PMs to all players is disabled during the scen and for 10minutes afterwards"

• This would hopefully provide a protective barrier for new players without harming MMR of higher ranked players. SAFE SPACES PEOPLE!

• I suggest updating rewards to include decaying mounts to coincide with this more inclusive mode.

Alternatively let people queue in "sparring mode".

• Games with at least 1 person queuing in sparring mode is treated as red mode

• Your MMR gains/losses are hidden and you do not show up in leaderboards until you have played at least 10 non-sparring games

• The person queuing in sparring mode receives no MMR gains/losses. The other players as stated above get reduced MMR gains/loses

Incentives

• Add a Top tier gear item like the triumphant ring that is only accessible via ranked. However let ppl q in incognito mode or a "sparring" mode that gives seriously reduced MMR. Its ok i think to gate an item in this mode so long as it becomes more inclusive and ppl that dont want MMR pressure can remove themselves from the leaderboards. I.e treat it as a slightly more challenging regular scenario. Ofc all these games would be considered red mode games

• Add temp cosmetics rewards for weekly top 3

• More, more, more end of season cosmetics rewards purchasable from vendor

• Weekly decaying pocket items for top 10 each class

• Add 7 day mount for weekly top 3

• Replace city statues with top 10 ranked

• Make the triumphant rings decay over 2 seasons.

• Weekly stews, blue armor pots, gold rewards due to massive drain of resources it takes to play ranked. Especially since 80% of resources is spent in queue

MMR PARKING
I will present 4 different solutions to resolve MMR parking which is what primarily kills ranked mid season. Each solution has its own pros and cons and its own level of difficulty implementing.

Solution 1: Simple Decay

• If weekly play 10 matches not complete player loses 100mmr

• If weekly win 10 matches not complete player loses 50mmr

• Someone rightly pointed out this would be oppressive for lower ranked players

Solution 2: Point System with exponential transformation of MMR carried over

• At the end of each week take MMR of all classes and put them in their class sets. E.g 1 set for engineers and 1 set for runepriests etc

• Normalise the MMR values in each set to between 1 and 0

• Apply an exponential transformation to the normalised values in each set. What does this do ? It stretches the top placements while maintaining a stable plataue distribution for mid and bot ranked players.

• Scale the processed values to between 0 and 1200

• This raises the stakes for top ranked players making the upper bracket more volatile every week

• The new MMR values is what is carried over to the next week

Appendage to solution 2: Optional Addons that can be implemented

• Appendage 1: If you dont complete your weekly of play 10 games you fall back down to 0 or have your MMR simply halved

• Appendage 2: After the new MMR distribution, points are assigned to the top 5 placements. These points are what are tabulated at the end of the season to calulate the top 3 players in each class. Maybe also send weekly rewards to the top 5

Solution 3:: Apply MMR decay using an exponential decay factor

• End of week everyone receives a decay

• Base decay of 50mmr each week

• However the higher the MMR the greater the decay. Simple math.

Solution 4: Exponential MMR decay with time-slots
This was messaged to me by another person and I made a few changes to flesh it out

• Set a ranked time-slot between 21:00 Altdorf - 2am Altfdorf every day

• Every slot you miss you are punished with a minor decay.

• Successive slots missed add cumulative decay.

• Missing a slot means: You did not play a single game or you did not queue for at least 15 uninterrupted minutes

• If no games occurred within a slot then no decay is applied to players

• Can have rest days such as Saturday & Sunday

• It really starts to hurt after about 7 days

• This solution also inadvertently solves long queue times by squeezing the pop into slotted time-frames

• The mmr decay is applied after the conclusion of every slot. I.e on a daily basis

• Below is an example using a multiplier of 1.5 for every day of no games played. It starts from an initial 5mmr decay on first day missed.

1. Day 1 - 5mmr decay
2. Day 2 - 7.5mmr decay
3. Day 3 - 11.25mmr decay
4. Day 4 - 16.875mmr decay
5. Day 5 - 25.312mmr decay
6. Day 6 - 37.9mmr decay
7. Day 7 - 56.95mmr decay

Optional appendages to solution 4

• Dampen the MMR decay for ppl under 700 by half

• Or use more complex weighted dampeners from baseline. Normalise all MMR scores between 0-1. The normalised value of ur MMR is then multiplied against the above decay table. Highest person on leaderboards will face full decay as their value will be 1 while lowest will face 0 decay as they will have value of 0.

• Have the first hour of the time-slot prioritise 0mmr queues. I.e force red mode games. This is because having 0mmr past the first week has led to many people being unable to participate

[Krima]

Starting to play mid season as MMR 0, its also an issue. While most players are settled in MMR range from 500 to 1,5k. Trying to play with 0 mmr, someone wont just get a single POP.

[sonorous]

Yea if you miss the first week its over for you. No chance to queue or participate. Someone waited in queue for hours one night while 10+ games happened. Sadly he had 0mmr so it was pointless for him.

Edit: I added solution 4 which was messaged to me by someone via discord. Looks promising. I just hope this reaches the devs/community managers.

[Sever1n]

I want add that devs can stimulate sweaty figths for better rewards for taking #1 in class, by adding rewards that will be strong uniq, but not permanent and cant be used in ranked. Like make cycle of ranked every month, instead of seasons, where people will get champion medal and weapon for 30days for reaching #1, and some shining cosmetics like animated medals or crowns. It will give people some real prize to figth for that will reward them with uniqness, cos 80% of ranked people is bis and figth just for titles that no body use. And yes i agree that geared people should be stimulated to play ranked on constant basis, mmr resets are needed in some way, maybe some weekly rewards as liniments and blue armor pots too (cos gold drain is pfetty big)

[sonorous]

I agree with gold drain. Added your suggestion to Incentives section. The amount of pots and linis I spent on a single 10 min game is insane. Also I agree with you on gear. I think in hindsight making the ring accessible to everyone without need to play ranked solo was not the right descision. Focus should have been on how to make ranked solo more accessible for everyone regardless of skill / gear level. In terms of end game content its the only MMO server where every end game gear item is essentially free so long as you grind. Im not just talking about PVP. The only positive step I saw was the PVE speedruns.

[hordak774]

the most important stuff its exclusive reward for ranked !! Just something

[sonorous]

the most important stuff its exclusive reward for ranked !! Just something

Aye I agree. Exclusive rewards would go a long way with improving population.
I would just add that perhaps they need to be coupled with more inclusive mechanics
So people that don't want to be involved with MMR system can still achieve them while contributing to more ranked games
Some example ideas include:

• Sparring mode as mentioned above

• Incognito mode as mentioned above

• Red mode games as mentioned above that reduce MMR gains losses for those matched with a person queuing in sparring/incognito

If you mean more cosmetics / mounts / dyes / pots & linis:
Then I don't see why those can't be tied to MMR placements in weeklys or season handouts.

[siglade]

Solo ranked is just a fun content, should not have any gear/cosmetic locked to it. It's a way to get a different scenario mode (deathmatch, no objective) with 2/2/2 forced but in no case a competitive content.

Group ranked is where the reward should be and only there, able to spectate ongoing game would be cool feature too.

Leaderboard/mmr (both solo/group) as no purpose outside of creating drama and frustrate people.

[sonorous]

Solo ranked is just a fun content, should not have any gear/cosmetic locked to it. It's a way to get a different scenario mode (deathmatch, no objective) with 2/2/2 forced but in no case a competitive content.

Group ranked is where the reward should be and only there, able to spectate ongoing game would be cool feature too.

Leaderboard/mmr (both solo/group) as no purpose outside of creating drama and frustrate people.

Its a game mode just like PVE. Why not have rewards. Especially if there is an option to let people queue for gear only in a "sparring mode". And people that also want mmr cosmetic rewards queue in "fight mode". Sparring and Fight modes combine in lower MMR bracket. Tryhards get more reliable pops and people who want gear only are removed from entire MMR system. Everyone gets better quality ganes compared to current discordant sh***show of sometimes having 8rdps 1 heal etc.

Gatekeeping gear/rewards behind group is not the direction to go imo. Especially when server has at very max 6 competitive teams at any one time.

[normanis]

i have idea make ranked sc map, same as weekly sc map (finishing weekly ranked u finish weekly sc. like 2 sc rewards)
first plus , its make premades on both sides stop farm pugs in weekly sc.
second plus , premades have competitive fights.
therd plus, its make ranked more active.